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Ed's Blog

Yesterday the U.S. House passed a bill stopping all regulations designed to promote the economy, preserve the environment or protect health, safety and pocketbooks. Meanwhile, Citibank's Sandy Weill, the man who in 1999 convinced Congress to destroy the 1932 Glass-Steagall financial protections, has changed his mind.

A bi-partisan group of members of Congress, led by the political odd couple of Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), have sent detailed information demands to a number of virtually unregulated data brokers. The firms buy and sell information gleaned from public record databases, social network sites and other sources; but unlike the Big Three credit bureaus, no one really knows what they are up to.

Good news from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the nation's national bank safety regulator, which in testimony today rejects a proposal by payday lenders to hide out at the OCC to avoid regulation by the CFPB or states. The OCC says it doesn't want to charter payday lenders, because they are "focused on consumer credit products of the very nature and character that the OCC has found unacceptable."